Signs of summer...

We took the boys to Medina Fair on Monday. Luckily, they were letting anyone who arrived before 3 in for free. This made it a little easier to cough up money for food and rides. The corn dogs were a hit!

None for you, little girl.
Later on, we headed to Mark's parents to snap beans...a whole lotta beans! I was up until around 3, and Mark and Shari were up until well after 4. Ben and Nathan insisted on "helping". The funny thing is, Ben was actually a bigger help than Nathan. Mark would snap the end off for Ben, and Ben would then take the bean, snap it in half and throw it in the bowl. Mark had a hard time keeping up with him. In direct contrast, there's Nathan. Let's just say that he is a first born in every possible way. That includes the incredible drive for perfectionism. Nathan started off snapping the beans into little tiny pieces. Shari, in an attempt to be helpful, gave Nathan the suggestion that he create pieces the size of his finger. (Let me stop right here to point out that Shari also happens to be first born...)

In typical first born style, Nathan wanted to make sure his beans were sized perfectly. He'd snap his bean, hold it up next to his finger, snap a little more off, check it again....until it was exactly the size of his finger. A bean that could have 2-3 pieces had one toddler finger-sized piece. The rest went in the trash heap. Ben had 10 beans done for every one that Nathan did. Ah...but it was nice to see two boys who wanted to help out so bad.

Dale worked a full day, picked the beans and stayed up late helping out with the canning.

Shari is on "vacation". What a fun activity

for her time off!

Seventy some quarts later...we're done! Hallelujah! We still will have corn to freeze this year and possibly meat to can.

Today, my van got a new windshield. Between my run-in with a telephone pole and a very strange crack that developed in the windshield (not related to my accident), the van was looking pretty sad. Now that the fender and windshield are fixed, I'm back to being a hot stylin' momma again in my fancy ride.

(And we're "only" seven hundred and some odd dollars poorer.)

Get-together at the Winan's

While Uncle Al and Aunt Sally were out, we tried to maximize our time spent with them. Yesterday, we had a get together at Mark's cousin, Angie, and her husband Scott's house. It was just a comfortable day outside...eating, playing cornhole and later some games. Nathan was very interested in Grandma Doris's bracelet.

Aunt Sally mentioned that she has never seen anyone play cornhole in Oklahoma. So, is this just a regional thing? All I know is that we went to two parties this weekend, and both featured cornhole! Too bad I totally stink at playing it!

Cousin Amy and Uncle Al

Aunt Sally

Ben chillin' out

Ack! How'd that get in here?

Aunt Stephanie holding the baby

Grandma even got in on the action.

So did Nathan and Ben.

Later, we played the DVD version of Family Feud and Disney Scene It.
We traveled home with three very tired children...


Later Uncle Al and Aunt Sally came to see changes we've made on the house. (They haven't been to our house for about 4 years.) We've made pathetically few changes.

...and that was our weekend!

A new take on cornhole...

Oh, the horror!

I've been keeping up with the walking. Yesterday, I walked to Mark's parents' house. Today I walked there and back. I read on a blog recently that it is better to do interval training. Sounds like you start slow and then build up to a jog, then repeat. It's supposed have much more benefits than a long walk (like I'm doing). It can even be done walking/running in place in your own home. If I did that though, I'd miss incredible sights like this one:

I'm pretty sure you can't find butterfly roadkill in your living room.

You can't handle the....responsibility!

After going to a pool party, I've been daydreaming about having an in-ground pool and how incredibly awesome that would be. Now, some people would point out all the work that goes with upkeeping a pool. You know, cleaning it...adding chemicals...keeping it covered, etc. Here's how I came to the conclusion that I couldn't handle a pool: I realized....If I have a pool, I'd have to start shaving above my knees on a regular basis. Lazy girl here usually stops shaving at the knees because she usually wears capris. Yep, I just can't handle that kind of responsibility yet. Maybe later...like when I grow up and become a responsible adult.

How cute are father-daughter pictures??? Jordyn is getting so big! She's moving into the next size of clothing. I hate to jinx it, but it seems like Jordyn is moving out of the constantly fussy baby stage. Not to say that she's never fussy, but she' been much calmer lately. We're getting lots of smiles and baby babbling. Jordyn even rolled over the other day, but, since she was on an uneven blanket which might have given her an advantage, we won't count it.
Mark's aunt and uncle (Sally & Al) are out visiting this weekend. We had a get-together at his parents yesterday. I actually walked there from our house in my quest to get fit. My pedometer showed that I walked 2.9 miles. We checked it with Mark's GPS, and it really is only 2.3. Which probably means that my two 5 mile days were actually less than that. We're thinking about getting a GPS like Bill has. If we're going to do the walking/running thing, we might as well get all techie about it!

While we were at the Riley's, we saw this:

Which reminded me why I want to get a telephoto lens like Angie has. I NEED it!

Mark and the boys broke out the sparklers again. My pyromaniac husband started burning boxes of sparklers in a coffee can. Why? Who knows? It's a man thing, I guess.

Today, we went to a pool party!

Mark and I both left our suits at home as we aren't real excited to swim in front of everyone. When every single lady at the party got in the pool, though, I felt like a stick-in-the-mud for sitting it out. I finally let them talk me into wearing an extra suit, and I joined in on the swimming for awhile.

Makes me wish three things: 1. That I was skinnier (...working on that!), 2. That I wasn't always so self-conscious all the time, and 3. That I had a beautiful in-ground pool right outside my back door. (Repeat after me: Thou shalt not covet!)

None of the ladies at the party were super skinny or anything, but they all had no issues with wearing their swimming suits and just enjoying the pool. I wish I could have even a smidgen of that confidence.

Tomorrow, we're heading over to Angie & Scott's house for a cookout. We currently are staying up waiting on frozen cobbler to cook. Each one takes 80 minutes to cook, and I bought 2. Next time, I'll try to remember to "cook" something that doesn't take so long!

Inspiration from Angie

The stars finally aligned so that Mark and I were both home at the same time. While Mark took Nathan to Janine's for VBS, I walked almost 5 miles. When Mark got home, he went out and ran close to 2 1/2 miles. I'm not quite ready for the running yet. We both are sadly out of shape. Hopefully, not for long, though! Somewhere in this house, I have a picture of myself back when I was playing volleyball at Westfield. My legs were so shaped, and I was so skinny. I need to find it for inspiration. Funny thing is, I though I was so fat back then. Now, I'd give anything to look like that!

If you were a cell phone battery, where would you be?

On Saturday, right before we were heading out the door for Kalahari, I discovered my cell phone on the floor without a battery. Clearly, this is the work of Ben. I figured the battery would be on the floor very close to the phone, but it isn't. The problem is, I can't find the darn thing! There are so many delicious hiding spots throughout our house, the kids could be teens before I find it. I have a sneaky suspicion that Ben may have put it down one of the vents. (one of his favorite spots for stuffing anything he finds that will fit) I SO do not want to put my hand down the 5 or 6 vents that are on our ground floor. All this to say...if you're trying to call me, don't bother. I have no phone, and it's driving me crazy!

BTW, little bro....(yesterday)

If I'm not mistaken, this makes you a quarter of a century?

I would have called to wish you well, but, as you know, I have no phone.

Back in time...

You know how certain things can take you right back to a specific time in your life? For example, I can't listen to Chicago's Inspiration without immediately being on a roller skating rink hoping a certain boy would ask me to skate...but at the same time hoping he wouldn't since I was the world's worst skater. (We won't talk about who that boy was because, looking back, I realize he didn't even know I was alive.)

Or the smell of Love's Baby Soft. I remember that Janine had a bottle of it, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I'd try to steal a spray of it when I could manage to sneak into Janine's room. (tough feat considering Janine's great measures to keep us out of her room) Little did I know that I was making myself smell like a baby's diapered bottom.

There's a certain perfume that Grandma Ellen used to wear. I can't remember the name. (Janine or Angie, you'll have to remind me in the comments.) One whiff of that, and memories start flowing back. The same with Werther's hard caramels. Tasting those takes me immediately to Grandma and Grandpa Roth's place at the river.

Grandma June...definitely Vick's vapor rub. She used to always put it on before heading to bed. When Grandma used to visit us, she usually slept in the same bed as one of us. I remember many late night talks with her. Sometimes it was a lecture of how we could help out mom more; other times it was her sharing tidbits from her childhood. Little did I know back then how fast time flies and to treasure those moments. Watching The Price is Right also reminds me of Grandma's house...her little T.V. and poor reception. But, hey! It was more than we had at home!

All of this is being said because Lori and I shared a "time travel" experience on Monday. From 4th grade to 8th grade, our familes were members at First Baptist Church in Spencer. Four of us girls became an established group of friends...Lori, Jodi, Mary and me. We'd take turns going to each other's houses on Sunday. (Jodi's house was the mecca of coolness.) We have since mostly gone our own ways, but we do run into each other here and there. Lori and I have kept the most contact. Lori has remained very good friends with Mary. Jodi contacts us here and there...she's now a military wife and momma. Twenty or so years ago, though, (good golly, has it been that long?) we spent lots of time together. Blame it on moms in the choir and dads as deacons.

Little did I know how much time we spent in the bathroom at church, though, until reminiscing with Lori. You see, both of my sisters are members at FBC in Spencer. Lori brought Courtney and I brought Nathan to VBS there on Monday. We then "held down the fort" at the registration table. (in other words, we sat at the chairs, stole Angie's pop and talked the whole time) We were noting what things were the same and what things had changed at church. In reality, many things have changed, but I shared with Lori that the bathroom downstairs hadn't changed one bit. Her response... "You're kidding me! Let's go see!"

So we both headed down with our cameras to take a picture of the walls. Why the walls, you ask? Because they have "pictures" of us. Way back in sixth grade, we named all the cute little children on the wall.

Here's Lori, Angie and (I think) Jeff.

Me and Liz.
Craig and Jodi. Jeremy.

This is the same wallpaper that was on the walls twenty years ago and probably even 10 years before that! The more Lori and I talked, the more we realized how many memories we have from that bathroom alone. I'm thinking we had waaaaay too much time on our hands back then!

How about you? What songs, scents, tastes, sights, etc. instantly bring back memories for you?

Kalahari

I must admit...I had mixed feelings about heading to a waterpark with three young kids. How in the world were we going to watch them all? We were smart and invited Mark's mom to come along (especially since Mark was working at the convention for most of the time). My biggest worry, really, was Jordyn. If she decided to be fussy britches, I knew it could get pretty miserable. As soon as we entered the waterpark, something miraculous happened. The sticky heat and LOUD mixture of noises from water, people, etc. lulled that girl to sleep. This made for a much easier time with the boys.





We all know that any activity remotely related to water makes Nathan a very happy boy. We found out that Ben follows in his brother's footsteps. Ben was a little wary of the water slides, but by Sunday, he was an old pro. In fact, he thought his job was to help every kid down the slide. As soon as some apprehensive little girl would sit at the slide working up the courage to go down, Ben would run up and give her a push. We had some very surprised kids heading down the slides sooner then they expected! (I'm not so sure that Ben was a very popular kid around the kiddy park!)


Nathan and Ben were too young for most of the activities, but I was impressed with all the things Kalahari had available for their age. The kiddy area had around 10 water slides with a bunch of other activities. They were also allowed to go into the wave pool (their favorite), hot tub and lazy river with an adult.


Here are the boys in the wave pool. It was a little calmer than the wave pool I encountered at Geauga Lake when I was a kid. Makes me wonder if that pool was really that rough or if my perspective was much different.

Mark took a picture of Jordyn in the baby carrier. Well, I told him to only focus on Jordyn, but he doesn't listen very well. I took a look at the picture to make sure I didn't look too heinous. I swear I heard Mark muttering something about me making some Mormon polygamist a lovely tenth wife.

On to the lazy river. The boys aren't having any fun at all!

Jordyn has been in a dead sleep since we got home around 4ish. Mark is snoring on the couch. We're all utterly exhausted!

Kalahari...here we come!

Tomorrow is our first time going on anything resembling a family vacation this year. We hope to actually plan a real vacation but haven't sat down to figure that one out yet. Mark is working at a convention at Kalahari which gives us a free room and admission to the water park. Ya can't beat free...especially when you consider the cheapest rooms are well over $200 a night. Shari is going with us. Since Mark has to work until 4, she and I are going to switch off watching Jordyn while the other watches the boys. I hope to get some good pictures and hopefully not waterlog my camera! Ben and I enjoyed some quality time today (as much as Jordyn allowed, that is). Weston spent a few hours with us this morning and then Angie picked him and Nathan up and took them to Pier-lon. Nathan was so tuckered out that he fell asleep with food in his mouth on the way home. I had a good time chasing Ben around the house, tickling him, cuddling, etc. He seemed to enjoy having some mom time w/o brother around. He was excited to have his brother back, though. Mary Jane gave me a call today to tell me to quit posting pictures of her grandson on the Internet. (Oh, I'm just kidding. ) I was outside with the boys, so I missed her call, but she wanted to let me know that Children's Place is having an awesome $2 sale. (Thanks for the call BTW, MJ!) I got pretty excited since I haven't been able to go to garage sales for the last couple weeks. I was excited, that is, until I remembered I HAVE NO CAR! (boo-hoo)

The van is in the shop getting fixed. I guess that one was my fault since I'm the one that wrecked it. It is rather frustrating, though, having no transportation. Now I know that everyone else in the world is getting the good deals, and I'm missing out. If you're reading this, go to TCP and hone in on those deals for me. I'll catch you next time with some fun pictures from Kalahari.

The saga of the fence

I have been begging Mark for the past 3 or so years to build me a fence. I finally got him to agree this year, and we got busy saving up for it. In May, I prodded Mark to start the approval process for the fence. (It will be 6 foot and anything over 3 feet has to be approved.) On Mark's first visit, he was told that nothing could be done until he got a permit. We paid for that, and a meeting was scheduled for June 4th.

A day before the meeting, we got a phone call letting us know that the meeting couldn't be held because they forgot to tell us...we had to pay to put a notice in the paper. This notice had to be posted 10 days before any meeting was held. In addition, we had to fill out paperwork which included listing any neighbor who lived within 200 feet of us. (Turns out that's a whole lotta neighbors...around 20 if I remember correctly.) Someone from the village then had to contact all those neighbors to make sure there weren't any objections. That then delayed the meeting until last week.

Mark went to the meeting. I won't go into the details of that, but they eventually approved it. So we're getting our fence, right? Nope, not yet. They failed to mention until the end of the meeting that the fence had to then be approved by Council. Since Council had conveniently met the day before, we have to wait until August 4th for approval.

Mark called the mayor to try to get an earlier meeting and was met with the "if we do it for you, we'll have to do it for everyone" excuse. This is so frustrating. By the time we get the fence up, I'll be back at school! I'm half tempted to take the money to finish the attic and then do the fence next spring. At least the boys would get some use out of the attic over the winter.

Because we've been waiting on the fence, I haven't put up the pool. We knew we'd have to move the swingset, and I wasn't sure where the pool would then go. Since we have a small redneck streak in us, this was our solution today:

Whatever makes them happy!

Talking about sheep again!?!?

I just swung over to Mary Jane's site (the grandma of the famous Brody in the VBS post). She has a video of the sheep song with Brody starring. But, if you look carefully, Ben is a couple kids to the left of Brody. I just want you to visit it so you get the song stuck in your head just like me. (And if I got the song stuck in my head hearing it once, think about Mary Jane who led the music all week long! It is a very cute song.)

So click on the sheep above to go to the site, and then scroll down to the bottom for the video.

BFF

This girl...
and this girl... will hopefully grow up best of friends. :)

Our friends, Jen & Andy, had their baby on Sunday. Jen had a very quick delivery...a bit nerve wracking for them as the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. Baby Ashley is fine, though, and we're so glad Jordyn has a girl her age to be friends with.

Oops! Parent failure here...

We have found recently that bedtime goes much easier if we let the boys pick out a movie and watch it in bed. Usually the boys are asleep within 5 minutes of the movie starting. It has come to where they expect it now, and since it's summer, it's not usually a big deal how late they might be up (with some exceptions). So here's a conversation with Nathan the other day. (Nathan comes running in the living room after brushing his teeth with daddy's help.) N: Yay! Yay! Yay! A: What are you so excited about? N: Daddy said tomorrow's not Sunday! A: And? N: We don't have church and that means WE GET TO WATCH A MOVIE!!!! I'm very, VERY happy! (Uh oh, I don't think that's the reaction we want! :) A: So what movie are you going to watch? N: The same one I watched last night. A: What movie is that? N: Well, these kids are all in bed and one kid gets out of bed. Then the green guy comes and steals their Christmas tree. (snort and giggle) It's SO funny! So my kid doesn't want it to be Sunday, and he thinks it's funny that the Grinch is stealing Christmas trees. I'm going to call Social Services on myself.

Toddler alternate reality...

I just love the little universe toddlers live in. It becomes so apparent when you stick a toddler in front of a couple hundred people. Most people would be on their best behavior. But not in toddler world. Instead, you get things like this...

Motions, shmotions. We're averaging 20% here on participation.

This little guy lasted 2 words into the song and then ran terrified into his dad's arms.
And we have our little flower child. She had her own personal dance performance in front of all the singers.
I missed the picture of two boys having their own UFC smack down. When they started into again, I had my camera ready, but their killjoy mom stopped them before I could capture the moment. Shoot! (or, in this case, not)

And who's this guy thinking he's ALL THAT?

This boy is thinking, "Whatever. Go on singing your little baaa, baaa song. I'm too cool for that!" We've seen this cutie before.
I saved the best for last. This is the pastor's grandson. First, he's going to make up his own moves.

A little hammin' for the crowd. (Notice...no shoes. We couldn't keep shoes on that boy all week!)Then he heads off for a short visit to his momma.And then explores the stage a bit. The kiddos were up there for something like 5 songs or so. I was about peeing my pants watching all the antics.

I just wanna be a sheep...

baaa...baaa...baaa! Okay, that song ran through my head all night long greatly hindering my sleep! :) Doesn't it drive you crazy when a song won't get out of your head? That was one of the songs the boys didn't sing but were supposed to be singing on stage. So, all week long Nathan kept talking about visitors. At first I thought he meant that he wanted to have someone over to the house. Eventually I realized that he was being encouraged to bring visitors to VBS. I asked him who he wanted to invite. I figured he'd want to bring his cousins Weston and Craig. I was even expecting that he might suggest the kids that Trinka babysits. Nope. Nathan insisted that his visitor was going to be Grandma Shari. Wouldn't his teachers have been surprised if Nathan brought his "visitor" to class? Grandma ended up coming to the VBS ceremony. When Nathan saw her, he got very excited and proclaimed, "My visitor came!"

VBS

We missed out on Thursday's VBS. I ended up taking Nathan to the doctor as he kept saying that he was very, very sick. Turns out that he checked out just fine...no strep. He must be over whatever little bug he had as he hasn't complained much since then.

Today was the last day for VBS. Nathan won a prestigious award. (Actually, this is Nathan's first award he has ever received. Quite a big day in his life!)

I took the liberty of changing the description.

Before the VBS ceremony this evening, I had the boys take a bath. I got Ben out, diapered him up and then proceeded on getting myself ready. Next time I checked in on him, I found a boy who had written all over himself in pen. Back in the tub he went!

Nathan and Ben "performed" a few songs in the ceremony. Performed may be the wrong word as Ben basically stood up there and sucked his thumb. Eventually it turned to this:

That's where Ben joined me after practically falling off the stage. Nathan in the meantime stood on the stage like a statue. I got Nathan's attention hoping to encourage him to sing. This is the exact moment where Nathan realized I was up front.

He got an excited look on his face and declared over and over to any kid who would (or wouldn't) listen to him, "That's my mommy!"

He eventually moved on to doing some stretches:
After that, it was on to having an in depth conversation with his friend Jacob.

Neither boy sang a nano-second up there on stage. Oh well, at least they didn't pick their noses!

VBS Set

The VBS theme this year had to do with dinosaurs. A lady at church does the set each year. I asked her what her budget was for the set. Her response was, "What budget?" She puts together the set with donations and money that she chips in. She did an excellent job!

Kindred spirits?

Blog Designs

According to my MIL, having a new blog design = increased blogging. So, Shari, I'm taking you up on this. Let me know what colors, etc. you want for your blog, and I'll whip something up for you. Now Janine, on the other hand, doesn't even make any promises. In fact, she complained about not having a new blog design but then went on to say that I could get pictures from Angie for it. Hmmm... But that's okay...I'm game! Same thing for you, Janine. Just let me know a general idea of what you want, and I'll try to put something together for you too. :)

Day 3 of V.B.S.

Have you missed me? I know my huge blogging audience of 3 is waiting with bated breath for my next post...and wait they did! (3 whole days now!) VBS has entered our lives this week which means waking up insanely early. (or around 7 a.m.) We're just not used to those hours during summer. On Monday, I carted the kids to my 8 a.m. doctor's appointment. We were in and out of there within 5 minutes. I think the doctor got one look at me with my 3 kiddos and took pity. He followed me right into the room. At church I got Nathan and Ben to their lines and then went on to take care of 5 babies in the nursery. Because the babies belong to VBS workers, the nursery workers are the last ones to pick up their kiddos. When I went to pick up Nathan who was looking so dejected with a couple other kids of VBS workers, he started to blink his eyes fighting back the tears. His first words to me (said in a shaky voice) were, "I missed you so much, mom!" Then he went on to say, "I'm all out of energy." And, boy, was he! I had to use every tool in my bag of tricks to get him to stay awake on the way home. Although Nathan's not liking it, I've made him take naps this week. It definitely helped him be a happier boy for the following days of VBS. I, in a what were you thinking moment, volunteered to work in nursery this week. Actually it hasn't been bad at all, and it's neat to see babies at different stages. It reminds me that Jordyn will eventually be at the happy, contented, fat baby stage. (She pretty much has the fat part well on its way....we just need happy and contented added to the mixture.) The true hero of this week is a friend of mine who is teaching the 2's and 3's. She has kids in diapers, kids in potty training and kids in between. All the kids belong to VBS workers, so she has to try to play the game of keep the kids from seeing their mommas. From what they tell me, Ben has been a good boy. I have seen that he has one particular girl catering to his every need. He somehow has convinced her that he needs to be carried everywhere he goes. Little twerp! This morning I was right on schedule to be to VBS early. Mark grabbed Jordyn and Nathan. I went on the search for Ben which ended with finding Ben in the bathroom covered with shampoo...all over his body...and even more in his hair. He got the quickest clean up ever, and I, of course, was late to helping out in nursery. Guess that's what I get for forgetting to put the shampoo up after giving Jordyn her bath. (This is not Ben's first adventure into shampoo bliss.) At supper tonight, Nathan got very weepy and informed me that it hurt to swallow. I had a look into his mouth, and it does appear that his tonsils are unusually large. We may be visiting the doctor tomorrow instead of church. We'll see how he does tonight. Other than a sore throat, he has been acting fine. I'm currently watching Ben in the bathtub trying to get a straw to stay put in his belly button. The things that occupy a toddler! :)

Just giving you what you want....

I know that you were thinking as you brought up my blog, "Boy, I sure hope she has duck pictures today." Well, you're in luck, because wa-la....indeed I do have duck pictures!




Which brings up the question...Why do we take duck pictures? Every time I'm around animals, I'm compelled to take pictures of them. What in the world am I going to use duck pictures for?



Okay, so that's probably not what you were looking for. Well then, I bet you were hoping I'd have another animated picture on my post. Try this one out for size:

I know! This is good stuff!

Well, I don't want to use up all my duck pictures and animated thinga-ma-boppers on just one post, so I'll bore you with regular old pictures such as this one showing my son trying to figure out how to get the ring on the hook at The Barn.

And this one that gives no indication of what a booger Ben was being while eating. (He started off almost immediately trying to scatter all his food on the floor.) Looks pretty innocent, doesn't he? Don't be fooled by those beguiling eyes!

This picture below shows the game we like to play called "Exchange perfectly good quarters for food to feed someone else's ducks and fish."

Good times.

As you can tell, we ate lunch at The Barn with Mark's side of the family. Nathan and Ben had fun with the ducks, but, of course, Nathan's absolute favorite was operating the train in the waiting area. (didn't get any pictures of that)

Tomorrow starts VBS at our church. I'm working in the nursery. The boys are going to be in total shock having to get up early. Just to totally do them in, I scheduled a doctor's appointment for myself at 8 in the morning. (I better not have to sit on the table for 20 minutes this time listening to the doctor discuss on the phone the benefits of ordering dog food on the Internet vs. buying from Petco like I had to last week. My foot procedure literally takes 45 seconds to complete. It's just not fun waiting with a crying baby listening to trivial conversations through the paper thin walls! :)

We have to leave directly from the doctor's office to get to church. It's going to be cutting it close. I can hardly wait to deal with 3 grumpos in the morning. They'll have so much fun at VBS, though.

Round 3

We finished off the long July 4th weekend with one more fireworks show, this time in Orrville, making this the 3rd and final fireworks for this year.


Here's what Nathan thinks about my renewed interest in taking pictures:

Jordyn, cute as always... Somehow I missed taking a picture of Ben. I was trying to get a shot of him with his lit-up tail, but it was too dark. Mark had brought glow sticks and he hung the glow stick on Ben where it looked like a tail. The tail made it easy to spot Ben out with the rest of the kids in the dark.

Finally, this is Amy helping me out by holding Jordyn. (until she wimped out saying that Jordyn was "getting heavy"---wus!)

I'm keeping this post short because I like sleep. It's a wonderful thing, and I'm missing out on it. Off I go!

Warning...picture overload ahead!

We spent the day at ugly Jenna's house. (That's what Mark calls her to which Nathan promptly replies, "Jenna's not ugly! She's pretty!)

As you can tell, I obsessively took pictures...






...I even took pictures of Jordyn's shoes because they're too cute...

...especially when paired with the adorable shirt Aunt Danielle and Uncle Jeff got her!

Here's the "newly" wedded couple.
Still gooey-eyed over each other!
Don't worry, kids will come along and ruin that for you!

Here's Aunt Lori and Grandma Brinker chillin' on the porch...
Uncle Dick and Aunt Susan (from Indiana) were here to visit. They are the grandparents to the adorable girls in the post below this.

...and this is the cuties' mommy!
Jordyn was a good girl...

Later in the afternoon the kids went swimming. Ben has made progress. Instead of hanging out on the side of the pool, he clung desperately to Mark IN the pool!

Nathan, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the water.

Through the patience and efforts of Mark, Ben eventually even enjoyed being in the water!

Jordyn and I stayed out of the pool.
Towards the end of the day, we headed off to see fireworks. (Second time this week for the boys.)

I'll leave you with some adorable pictures of Jordyn hangin' out with Grandma.

Our cousin's cuties

Mark's cousin Heather and her husband Brad were out to visit. They have three adorable little girls, age 5, 3 and 4 months. I enjoyed catching some shots of them hanging out and playing in the backyard.

Spencer Parade

My son road on a float today advertising for a VBS he isn't going to attend. Why? Because I'm a sucker for photo-ops! My sisters are busy preparing for their church's VBS. They always have a float in the parade where the kids from the church dress up according to the theme that year. This year's theme was Hawaiian. Caryn spent the night at our house last night, and she was decked out in luau wear to the hilt. I, on the other hand, was digging all through Nathan's dresser trying to find something that would pass as tropical. He ended up just wearing a bright green shirt...the closest thing I could find.

Throughout the whole process of getting ready, I was fighting off a migraine headache. I soon discovered that nausea was accompanying it when I found my head in the toilet. (No, I'm not pregnant.) This made my decision that I'd be staying home with Jordyn, and Mark was passed the torch of taking parade photos. I warned Mark that I had fiddled with the manual settings while taking pictures of Jordyn last night. He was told to switch the settings to "Auto". I forgot that Mark does not speak camera language. He looked at the lens, saw that the switch was on AF and assumed that meant Auto.

The only person taking photos (apparently) in our family, took this picture: (mind you, this is the best from the lot)

....don't cry Janine...

It would appear that the manual settings for a dimly lit living room at night don't work for a bright daylight outdoor environment. Go figure. Add on top of this that I fiddled with the picture. It was brighter than this straight out of the camera. Don't worry, the memories are not lost. I made a key below.

I guess God was trying to teach me that I shouldn't use other churches' VBS floats for photo opportunities. :) The sad thing is that I could see enough in the pictures to tell that they would have been REALLY good had the settings been right.

Anyway, Jordyn and I slept all morning, and I felt much better afterword. Ben collected lots of candy, wetting his appetite for many more parades, and Nathan enjoyed the float.

Girls' night in!

Mark took the boys to see the Medina fireworks. I fully intended on going, and then I started thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the more of a hassle it seemed to be. Since we're watching fireworks in Orrville on Saturday, Jordyn and I stayed home. Jordyn has made me pay for my decision as I have held the grumpy gal all night. The two things I really wanted to do (make my 2nd dessert for tomorrow & clean the boys' room since Caryn is spending the night) hasn't happened yet. I did manage a photo shoot during the 5 minutes J was happy. (Yes, I am typing with one hand right now.) Here's a photo w/my new "glass":

Who'd guess that her head would spin around and her eyes glow red soon after this photo? I kid you not!

Yummmm...

I think!

I've never made this before, but I have it on the good word of Pioneer Woman that this is tasty. With the massive amounts of cream cheese and butter, it better be! Sorry, Angie. You're way in NJ, so I guess you'll be missing out. :(

The boys got to enjoy the last two days swimming with their cousins at Pier-Lon. Angie and Janine have memberships. Since it's a bit of a drive from our house, we just buy a day pass each time we go. Yesterday, poor Jordyn had to endure the heat. The fortunate thing is that Trinka, our babysitter during the school year, lives about a minute away. Today, she and her daughter watched Jordyn. It was absolutely blissful. I got to enjoy talking to my sister and snapping pictures of the kids without worrying about keeping the sun off of Jordyn, feeding her, calming her, etc. Don't get my wrong, I love the little bugger. Those small breaks can make all the difference, though!

Yesterday I got my new lens. (or "glass"--that's what I would call it if I were a pro...but I'm not, so I won't) :) Half the pictures I took today did not turn out. I was trying the setting on my camera that Angie always uses, but apparently my settings are WAAAAY off. The pictures all turned out super dark. Towards the end, I switched it to the auto setting and managed a couple nice shots.

This is Nathan and Craig (Janine's youngest).

Ben had fun getting sand and water in his bucket. A few times he managed to terrorize his cousins by dumping it on their heads. Today he hit Craig on the head with a digging toy. Janine tried explaining to Craig that he didn't mean to hurt him because he's only a baby. To which Nathan replied, "No, he's not! He's a TODDLER!" Nathan's not going to let Craig be fooled by this baby ruse!




Nathan managed to find a couple "honeys" at the beach. Actually, these are friends of Ashley's who is a friend of my sister. In other words, Nathan wasn't hanging out with total strangers, although that wouldn't make any difference to him anyway.

I found this poor, pathetic bird all helpless laying on the ground. It must have fallen out of its nest.

All in all, it has been a relaxing couple of days...the calm before the storm (July 4th). That's when all the action will start!

Suggestions requested...

Mark and I are talking about taking a short vacation (a week or less) this summer. We would like to drive to wherever we decide to go, and we need to pick some place that is fun for the kids. If it included trains, that would be a bonus! So, any ideas?

A little this and a little that...

I knew I needed to be grateful for the 2 blissful, happy days that Jordyn had over the weekend. She is now back to being fussy girl. Actually, today wasn't too bad compared to many days. She fussed but was happy as long as I held her. Problem is that I can't hold her every hour of the day! This kid thinks she's the first born! :)

I had to take a picture of Jordyn in her brown shirt. This poor girl was mistaken for a boy twice in the doctor's office today, all because of that brown shirt! Never mind that she had pink socks, pants with flowers on them and a pink hat. Apparently...baby wearing brown = boy!

Nathan has been obsessing about sparklers lately. I found a couple old boxes of sparklers in the garage a few weeks ago. This started the obsession. So, when I was at Target the other day, I bought 2 more packs of sparklers thinking we could use them on July 4th. Mark dug into them early at the Riley's house on Sunday. Nathan came home very tired and weepingly told me that he had a very bad day because he ran out of sparklers. (Never mind that he had just blown through over 50 sparklers.) Tonight I bought 6 more packs after Nathan reminded me 30 or so times that we needed to go shopping.

I took pictures, but I'm badly in need of a lesson on how to take pictures of kids with sparklers at night. My failed methods did make for some interesting pictures:

Nathan ran around like a crazy goon declaring that he was a fiery dragon.

Ben didn't last very long with the sparklers. He kept wanting to touch them after they burned out, and then was upset that they were hot!

Speaking of Ben, he's been totally cracking us up at night. Whenever it's time for bed, Ben runs into the living room, grabs a pillow and blanket and plants himself on the couch. He remains convinced that we'll let him sleep there each night. (We never do.) He was particularly difficult tonight. He kept coming downstairs instead of staying in bed. I final took him up and tried to get him settled. I put a pillow down, laid a blanket over him and gave him a kiss. Ben laid there for a minute, went to the other side of the bed and searched out the down pillow (expensive tastes already), moved the other pillow over and patted on it insistently. (Basically telling me that I needed to lay down on that pillow.) Little booger! He barely talks but sure has his own way of communicating.

Last, but certainly not least, I just found out that Mark's cousin Mandy and her husband Darren welcomed a baby girl, Abigail, into the world yesterday. Congratulations!